Trump biographer Michael Wolff said Saturday President Donald Trump’s plan to end the conflict in Gaza was developed by his son-in-law Jared Kushner to make himself richer.
During the “Inside Trump’s Head” podcast, as highlighted by the Daily Beast, Wolff said Jared “craves influence in the Middle East.”
“He craves business opportunities in the Middle East. He craves further, deeper relationships with the powerful people in the Middle East, all of which is helped by peace. So peace becomes a byproduct of business,” he added.
Kushner’s private equity firm Affinity Partners has significant investments from Qatar, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates.
Affinity Partners invests in American and Israeli companies in the Middle East with the goal of expanding in the territory.
Earlier this month, White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt dismissed claims of impropriety related to Kushner’s peace negotiations and his business interests in the Middle East.
“I think it’s frankly despicable that you’re trying to suggest that it’s inappropriate for Jared Kushner, who is widely respected around the world and has great trust and relationships with these critical partners in these countries, to strike a 20-point comprehensive detailed peace plan that no other administration would ever be able to achieve,” she told a reporter in response to a question.
Kushner, the husband of Ivanka Trump, is technically not a part of the Trump administration but acts as an unpaid, informal adviser, particularly when it comes to the Middle East.
Wolff suggested that Kushner, along with real estate developer and US Special Envoy to the Middle East Steve Witkoff, pressed their business connections with Middle Eastern royal families to broker the Israel and Hamas deal.
“The Qataris basically say… we will come down hard on Hamas,” outlined Wolff.
“And remember, Israel attacked the Hamas negotiators, essentially the top Hamas leadership in Qatar. So they were completely freaked out about this. And I think they realized, this is not in our interest.”
“So it’s essentially, ‘We will come down hard on Hamas,’ they say to Donald Trump’s son-in-law, ‘if the president of the United States will come down hard on [Israeli Prime Minister] Bibi Netanyahu.’”
Until recently, Trump did not address Israel’s brutalities in the conflict, which has killed more than 67,000 Palestinian people, according to Gaza’s Hamas-run health ministry.
That was the case until Trump implied that if Netanyahu didn’t sign his peace plan, the U.S. would stop supporting Israel in the war, according to a White House adviser.
“Essentially Bibi has had a free rein to continue this awful carnage with Trump at best looking the other way. Suddenly though, he comes down hard on Bibi,” Wolff noted.
